Row Breaks Out Over Sale of Downing Street Visitors' Book

Chiswick Auctions says its client found it in a skip

Picture: Chiswick Auctions

February 14, 2024

Chiswick Auctions has temporarily pulled a planned sale of a Downing Street Visitors’ Book after the government said that it is Crown property.

The book which chronicles the visits to the Prime Minister’s home from 1980-95 is described by the auction house, which is based in Barley Mow Passage, as a ‘unique and historic document’ which it expects to bring in £10,000-£15,000.

Bound in red morocco and gilt leather with the lettering Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street to the cover, the book contains the signatures of numerous politicians, members of the royal family and world leaders who visited Number 10 in the Margaret Thatcher and John Major years.

On 4 December,1985, marking the 250th anniversary of 10 Downing Street, the late Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and surviving prime ministers, Harold Wilson, Alec Douglas-Home, James Callaghan, Edward Heath, Harold Macmillan, and Margaret Thatcher all signed the book. Likewise, during the G7 summit in July 1991 held in London the pages captured the names of George Bush, François Mitterrand, Giulio Andreotti, Toshiki Kaifu, Brian Mulroney, Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev. The then Prince Charles and Princess Diana signed twice, on 11 February 1985 and 20 November 1989.

A page from the book with Queen Elizabeth II's signature top left. Picture: Chiswick Auctions

Chiswick Auctions says it was brought to them by someone who worked as a civil servant for 24 years and told them he found it when he was given permission to remove a carton of what he believed to be empty water-damaged boxes from a skip following a flood in the basement of 70 Whitehall. At the time they had been earmarked for incineration.

The boxes were never used and it was only some years later when he was preparing to dispose of them that he discovered the visitor book inside. He says that he made two attempts to contact Downing Street about the book offering to return it but did not receive a reply. When asked about this by PA Media, government sources said there was no record of any such contact.

Valentina Borghi from Chiswick Auctions said, “My client came to own the No10 Visitors Book purely by accident around the year 2000. For many years he didn’t even know he had it. To his amazement, when preparing for a house move in 2017, he discovered the book neatly wrapped in tissue paper and bubble wrap. Having twice had no response from No10, my client has now taken the very difficult decision to put the book up for auction”.

Treasury Solicitors representing the Cabinet Office contacted Chiswick Auctions to say that they believed the book is a “Crown record under the Public Records Act 1958” that came in the man’s possession by ‘error’. The vendor says that there is no evidence of the book being registered as a public record.

A Downing Street source reportedly told PA Media, “We will be taking steps to recover this crown property. The book is a piece of history – it belongs to the nation, not to an individual to be sold.”